MON 12/19 (7:00PM) — This past 2011 Fall season ran into some difficulties as many teams sat on the sidelines with the NFL coming back and guys unemployed or under-employed in the Great Recession. Also, I didn’t think Problems could matchup well in this division, even though we mixed AL/NL with AAA in the regular season. Guys were missing for those games or what not and it was difficult to translate that on an even playing field.

So it wounded up with the Rangers and SF City, but SF City couldn’t pay its dues even as they won Game 1 of 3 in a best-of-three series. Then the Rangers bounced back. Game 3 would not be played due to the aforementioned missing dues.

But we’ve already got signups for 2012 Winter-Spring and we hope SF City can come back in a similar capacity, as their talent and skill shows that they can be a championship contender at this level of 6’4″-ish size.

Congrats to the Rangers for yet another championship. They are now the reigning champs atop Dream League’s premier division.

MON 12/19 (6:45PM) — Shohoku took San Jose Hibachi to a Repeat Championship, but Hibachi won again. We tried to schedule a matchup amongst AAA-OAK Purefoods and AAA-SF Problems, but ran into logistical issues. Well, maybe next time. We got Hibachi to enter our Gold Rush tournament in what would be an equivalent 6’2″ division, but star rebounder Matt Trower went down with an injury, so they were short-handed and ended up with a disappointing performance in the tournament. We’re hoping that the 2012 Winter-Spring season brings back some of the San Jose AAA level teams that we lost during the Great Recession of Fall 2011. We’ll see.

MON 12/19 (6:45PM) — Here’s the final AAA-SF playoff bracket. Congrats again to Problems, which won another championship. Like Purefoods in OAK, they’re stuck in between being almost a perfect small team and too small to play any of the physically bigger teams. Ironically, there seems to be reluctance to play against Purefoods. We’ll see. Maybe in some future tournament?…

WED 11/6 (11:30AM) — There might NOT be a Repeat Championship on 12/11. Instead, both teams would enter a single-elimination bracket vs AAA-Elite Oakland and AAA-SJ. Now, if the winner of TorrCats/BCL still carries double-elim status (i.e., beats the Losers Bracket survivor), then I might have to figure something out. Let’s see how it plays out. More on this later.

WED 11/16 (10:15AM) — Here’s the AAA-SF playoff bracket through this past Sun 11/13. I guess Freddie hasn’t gotten around to posting the final scores from 11/13 on Twitter. Will have to happen soon, otherwise we can’t update this bracket and schedule 11/20…

MON 12/19 (6:45PM) — Here’s the final AAA-E Oakland bracket. Congrats to Purefoods. I’ll be trying to convince them to move up to AL/NL level with a big man…

WED 11/16 (11:45AM) — Here’s the AAA-Elite Oakland playoff bracket through this past Sun 11/13. I guess Freddie hasn’t gotten around to posting the final scores from 11/13 on Twitter. Will have to happen soon, otherwise we can’t update this bracket and schedule 11/20.

Also, there might NOT be a Repeat Championship. Instead, both teams would enter a single-elimination bracket vs AAA-SF and AAA-SJ. Now, if the winner of the Winners Bracket still carries double-elim status (i.e., beats the Losers Bracket survivor), then I might have to figure something out. Let’s see how it plays out. More on this later.

I know the Shockers captain was upset about the two doubleheaders in a row, but quite frankly I was not looking that far ahead. It was just a natural progression of the bracket. If we didn’t do that, then the #1 and #2 seeds would’ve been forced to have a bye the first week, which is a toss-up on whether to do it or not. The other thing that messes us up is that on 11/20, we have limited gym time due to a birthday party at Bushrod. So as luck would have it, it’s better that we did it that way considering the brick wall at Bushrod on 11/20. Also, had the Shockers made it through to the Winners Bracket, they probably would’ve been happy that the Losers Bracket was embarking on doubleheader mode. Another example how in basketball, to the victor goes the spoils; that fine line between winning and losing.

That also means we might take a league-wide bye on 11/20 due to the absence of gym space at Bushrod, so the dates below for the next immediate round might get pushed back…

WED 11/16 (10:45AM) — Here’s the AAA-Premier Oakland playoff bracket through this past Sun 11/13. I guess Freddie hasn’t gotten around to posting the final scores from 11/13 on Twitter. Will have to happen soon, otherwise we can’t update this bracket and schedule 11/20…

MON 12/19 (6:30PM) — Here are some results from each of the three locations…

SJ: Booom (SJ) forced a Repeat Championship, but Hibachi managed to win the Repeat to put another Dream League championship feather in their hat. Meanwhile, the controversy over the heights of star players Aaron Buckner and Matt Trower resurfaced when Hibachi appeared for the Bay Area showdowns with 6FT-SF and 6FT-OAK champions. I called my SJ Commish Ron and he said that he measured the two, although it is clear that it all really comes down to the method and error-proneness of the devices used to measure. So what this really comes down to is philosophy. Why do we have a 6’0″ without shoes limit? What do we do when we only have three teams in San Jose and we need a fourth team? Both sides can be debated ad nauseum. I honestly don’t know what the answer is, but the reason why both players played was because Ron told me he measured both players to be 6’0″ without shoes, even though that doesn’t pass my “eye test”. I was not able to measure either player myself, but I think doing this kind of thing really depends on many variables. In any case, we will try to get the 6FT-SJ division back to its old self, when we had 16 teams and could split into a higher and lower playoffs.

SF: Prodigy outlasted Ed O’Banners, which won the previous season’s championship, and then beat Sqad Up from Oakland, but lost to Hibachi.

OAK: Sqad Up beat Sole Supremacy to claim yet another 6FT-OAK championship, but then lost to both Hibachi and Prodigy.

All three teams will be receiving championship t-shirts. We thank all 12 teams, 4 in each region, for playing and continue to be committed to rebuilding each location back to its old self, now that we can put the Recession of Fall 2011 behind us. Dream League ate the extra cost on these championship t-shirts (since there were fewer teams, there was less revenue, so t-shirts became a bigger expense than usual), as well as for Oakland’s WKRC gym.